6 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



circles, the soldiers flung their torches into flaming piles 

 in the centre and their chaunt rose stronger on the 

 wind. Sayed Idris was pleased: "You will see cere- 

 monies like this in my country," he said, "but there 

 will be no houses. You will not miss them." 



The moment the last gun, announcing the Emir's 

 departure for Italy, had been fired, Hassanein Bej^ and 

 I cHmbed into the car most kindly lent by the Govern- 

 ment. When he first consented to accompany me to 

 the Libyan Desert, where his knowledge of the language, 

 religion and customs was invaluable to me, Hassanein 

 Bey assured me that he came for a rest cure. Later on 

 he assumed so many characters that it was somewhat 

 difficult to keep count. He was always the Q.M.G. 

 of our little expedition and he used to produce maca- 

 roons at the most impossible moments from equally 

 impossible places! He was a chaperon when elderly 

 sheikhs demanded my hand in marriage, a fanatic of 

 the most bitter type when it was necessary to impress 

 the local mind, my Imam when we prayed in public, a 

 child when he lost his only pair of primrose yellow 

 shppers, a cook when we stole a bottle of Marsala from 

 the last Italian fort and chased a thin hen till, in 

 desperation, she laid an egg for our zahaglione! He also 

 made the darkest plans for being a villain and murdering 

 anyone who interfered with our affairs, and I nervously 

 hstened to tales of sudden disappearances in the Sahara. 



However, on the day of our departure from Benghazi 

 he was distinctly subdued, for, on looking at our piles 

 of camp kit and my two very small suit-cases, I had 

 suddenly noticed several exceedingly large and hea^^ 

 leather bags. With horror I demanded if they were 

 all absolutely necessary to his personal comfort. "Yes, 

 really I" he assured me. **They are only actual necessi- 

 ties. As a matter of fact they are half empty. I 



